Sooner Or Later
by LunaEsLoca
Summary: Ed returns Risembool to visit Winry, and Winry has started to worry that he travels specifically to avoid her. Ed completely proves her wrong. Fluff.


**AN: So this was written while I was doing a prompt challenge with songs, where I'd listen to a song, and either pick a line or a verse, or a theme or idea from the song and write a oneshot with that line/verse/theme/idea for a specific couple.**

**The song I used for this was, 'Outta Nowhere' by Pitbull, and the line I wrote to was 'Sooner or later that spark just disappears, outta nowhere,' and I do not even begin to claim that.**

**Also, these characters are not mine, I do not own them, and could never hope to. They belong to Hiromu Arakawa.**

"Winry! Winry!" Winry Rockbell snaps out of a daze to the sound of her name being called. She looks up from the ground on the platform outside the train station, and notices the train has arrived. She had seen it coming from a distance, but had gotten so lost in thought that she'd completely missed it getting so close. And really it hasn't actually stopped. Nearly, but not quite. It's still pulling slowly to a stuttering halt.

And Edward Elric is leaning almost all the way out the window, with his knees propped against the window frame. He sees her finally looking at him and waves animatedly, grinning a mile wide, happy to see her, and especially pleased to have finally captured Winry's attention His smile is so happy and joyful, almost childlike, and Winry finds herself smiling and blushing in return. After all, no matter how worried she is or how anxious she gets its always comforting to see him alive and nice to see him so happy. His happiness has always been infectious, and it hasn't become any less so in the past eight months.

The train finally creaks to a halt, and as it always does, rocks forward and jolts back into place. Ed comes tumbling out the window, and lands in a heap on the train station platform. He blushes as he continues to grin, though somewhat more sheepishly in light of recent developments. Winry can't help herself. She starts to laugh. Ed sticks his tongue out at her, which doesn't help at all. She doubles over, holding her sides, and Ed takes the opportunity to scramble over and start tickling her sides viciously.

Startled, she snaps back upright, and Ed doesn't hesitate to scoop her up over his shoulder and spin her around in circles across the platform. Some of the station workers smile. They're always like this when he comes home. It's one of the happiest things they see.

What they don't notice is that this time, when Ed sets Winry down and runs back onto the train to get his suitcase, Winry's smile fades from her face and all her worry comes flooding back. 'HIe seems so happy to be home,' she reasons, but her devil's advocate side pipes up, 'What if he's faking it? What if he's just happy to be getting this over with?' She knows it's ridiculous, but no matter how hard she tis, she can' stop worrying that she's right.

"Watcha thinking about?" Ed's voice reels her back to reality and anchors her there.

"Nothing really," Winry immediately jumps to her fallback response; "Just how much damage you'll have done to my automail this time." Ed freezes, a look of terror coming over his face. "You haven't been doing any of your maintenance, have you?" He shakes his head once. "Or been keeping it dry?" Another head shake. "And I bet you've gotten in a ton of fights and ruined the alignment and knocked everything out of place, too, haven't you?" This time he nodded.

Winry shot from teasing to furious faster than Ed could blink, and she started to wonder when that had stopped scaring him so much. Maybe it was a sign that they were growing apart. (In some secret corner of her mind she knows she's looking for reasons to be mad, for excuses really, but she refuses to acknowledge the thought, or even really entertain it.)

And when Ed ducks his head and kisses her (because he's finally grown, he's finally taller than her), she swears she had an entire fuming rant planned, but she can't remember any of it. And it's a really really good thing he's wrapped his arms around her, because her knees nearly give out when he starts to mumble against her lips. "I'm sorry, Winry. I just always forget, and then when I remember I think, 'the more I mess it up, the sooner I can go back and see her,' and well, it spirals from there." She can feel the heat rising to his cheeks as he blushes- sheepish and embarrassed as if he thinks he'll be scolded. He's usually not so open.

"So you're not avoiding me?" The question slips past Winry's lips before she can stop it. She can't believe she just asked him that, because it's not fair and she knows it.

Still, he answers her, "Winry, why would I be avoiding the girl I love?" She can hear him almost choke on the words, afraid he'll scare her away, and still afraid to be open and show emotion after he spent so long hiding everything to be strong for Al. "The sooner I finish all my traveling, the sooner I get to come home and not have to leave again.:

"You- you love me?" Winry stutters, dumbfounded.

Her surprise shocks Ed. "Of course!" he insists.

"No, no, not that. I know you love me, I just don't think you've ever said it before."

"Never had to. And I was too nervous to say it without a reason." He ducks his head to hide his blush before realizing that since he's grown, and is now taller than Winry, that it would hurt more than help.

"Well I like it. You should do it more often. And I love you too," Winry smirks to avoid looking as startled and dizzy as she feels, even though she knows Ed can see it in her eyes.

When he does in fact notice, he smirks right back. In a teasing voice that hides his childlike euphoria (because he is in fact ecstatic at hearing Winry say she loves him), he says, "Well in that case…" and he kisses her again, mumbling 'I-love-you' against her lips over and over until Winry's knees do buckle. Ed, who had not expected the sudden extra weight, almost manages to stay balanced, but ends up falling, with her in his arms, to the train station platform when his automail knee starts to give.

They end up on the ground, both laughing and smiling and blushing. Then Winry kisses Ed and the entire world disappears again, along with every thought in Winry's head except, "This is much better than a spark."


End file.
